Tournaments

[ral]

Went to an important tournament, representing my country, long flight and plenty of expectations. Could not test the water before it (not ideal...). Ended up in the drink with the noticeable score of 1.5 buoys in my first pass in the elimination round. Same thing happened in the finals to one Big Dawg skier, who had an almost certain gold medal. Him and I never ever miss the first two line lenghts in training. And that happens to almost every skier at least once in their career.

 

So here comes the topic. What should a competitive skier do to miminize the chance of ending up early in the drink when skiing in non familiar places and sometimes behind unfamiliar boats?

[A_B]

RAL, how do you warmup before you get into the water? I tried to be warned up with a short run, push-ups, zig zag drill to get my balance working, and hooked my handle up to my trailer hitch and hit my leverage positions. I focused on a strong gate and cautious one ball turn with head up. Once you get into the pulls all the nerves go away.

[Horton]

@Ral

 

When you fall on your opener that is not water. That is nerves. It sucks I have done it. Almost everyone has.

 

A practice ride always helps but for me when I get to a big event it is about NOT thinking. You round hundreds of balls a week at home so your body knows how. You have to just relax and go get it.

 

[ral]

@Horton, what you state is a fact. I might have inadvertently over-emphasized the non familiar places and boats in my first post, it is clearly not about that.

 

I am currently reading a book I purchased a while ago, "10-Minute Toughness". I agree with the author that getting into the right pre-competitive state of mind is something that can and should be trained. Maybe some get this naturally, as Nate gets skiing naturally as well. But for the vast majority of mortals, there are more than butterflies in the stomach at the starting dock.

 

The intention of the post is to have the view on what the pre-competitive routine is for the big scorers, both mental and physical, and if/how it differs from the training routine.

[The_MS]

It is kind of like the movie Hoosiers when the coach takes his team into that large arena and measures the hoop height. It is the same as every gym in the nation. That being said, I always make sure I get some sets at a new sight before the tourney.

@davidmiller will show up and do 5 sets on a Friday before the weekend events.

[MrJones]

Agreed. Long ago I used to try to ski sites before a tournament. I had far more stress and bad experiences with bad drivers, etc. shaking my confidence than I ever had because I wasn't familar with the site.

 

My thought is that if I am skiiing well in practice, why chance a bad ride before an important one. If I am not skiing well in practice, a day or two off and a fresh site may help.

[MattP]

I always try to ski a practice set. Especially if it is a new site. Also because I ski on an 8 ball full time and its nice to get back in the swing with out all the extra buoys. It's also a mental thing for me as well. Usually just my opener then second pass twice

[ral]

@MattP, there you are getting into something. Just opener and second pass. Why going further than that and put extra pressure on you because of either PBeing or doing crappy limit passes?

[MattP]

@ral no reason to get tired but just enough to loosen the body up and get accustomed to a different lake mentally. No reason to push for anything and get discouraged coming into skiing the next day. Ski your easy passes to knock the nerves off. @OB gave me this advice. I have always PB'ed in a tournament when I took a practice set the day before.

 

I've had my best performances as well in rowing when I was able to row a new course the day before the race learning the visuals early takes away from the distractions during the race. If I have raced that course before I would not take a practice row unless it was regionals or nationals to knock the nerves down.

While I still like to take practice sets at the lakes I ski I think as time passes I will take less on the lakes I know well.

[6balls]

If I can get a practice, I'll take it...last time I checked skiing is fun and I'm there to get some skiing. It probably helps some too in getting used to set-ups/driving patterns etc. If I don't have time for a practice...oh well. So far no blown openers, though have come close here and there.